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Vintage Mugshots of Crimes

Alice Adeline Cooke, criminal record number 565LB, 30 December 1922. State Reformatory for Women, Long Bay, NSW. Convicted of bigamy and theft. By the age of 24 Alice Cooke had amassed an impressive number of aliases and at least two husbands. Described by police as “rather good looking”, Cooke was a habitual thief and a convicted bigamist. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Dorothy Mort, criminal record number 518LB, 18 April 1921. State Reformatory for Women, Long Bay, NSW. Convicted of murder. Mrs Dorothy Mort was having an affair with dashing young doctor Claude Tozer. On 21 December 1920 Tozer visited her home with the intention of breaking off the relationship. Mort shot him dead before attempting to commit suicide. Aged 32. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Eugenia Falleni, alias Harry Crawford, criminal record number 741LB, 16 August 1928. State Reformatory for Women, Long Bay, NSW. Convicted of murder. Eugenia Falleni spent most of her life masquerading as a man. In 1913 Falleni married a widow, Annie Birkett, whom she later murdered. The case whipped the public into a frenzy as they clamoured for details of the “man-woman” murderer. Aged approximately 43. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Jessie Longford, criminal record number 686LB, 22 July 1926. State Reformatory for Women, Long Bay, NSW. Legendary undercover policeman Constable CJ Chuck, or “The Shadow” as he was known within the criminal milieu, was responsible for the arrest of Jessie Longford, a well-known shoplifter. Aged 30. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Vera Purcell, criminal record number 694LB, 7 September 1926. State Reformatory for Women, Long Bay, NSW. Vera Purcell led a group of two other teenage girls, aged 14 and 17, who stole a large quantity of clothing from a Darlinghurst house. They were convicted and the younger girls were sent to charitable institutions. Purcell, however, was sentenced to six months with hard labour at the State Reformatory for Women at Long Bay. Charged with: stealing. Aged: 19. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

This negative was found wrapped in a paper sleeve on which is written: “Group of criminals, Central 1921”. The subjects are not named, but the woman on the left is believed to be Eileen Leigh or Barry (daughter of Kate Leigh). The man on the far right in the back row may be Stephen Doyle, and the man to the left of him Kenneth McLelland (or McCrerrand). The man third from the left in that row may be the pickpocket and three-card trickster known as Frederick Mewson, and the man far left in the front row is likely the pickpocket known as Norman Smith. This picture is one of a series of around 2500 “special photographs” taken by New South Wales Police Department photographers between 1910 and 1930. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

This photographs was apparently taken in the aftermath of a raid led by CIB Chief Bill Mackay – later to be Commissioner of Police – on a house at 74 Riley Street, “lower Darlinghurst”. Numerous charges were heard against the 15 men and women arrested. Lessee Joe Bezzina was charged with 'being the keeper of a house frequented by reputed thieves', and some of the others were charged with assault, and with “being found in a house frequented by reputed thieves”. The prosecution cast the raid in heroic terms – the Chief of the CIB, desperately outnumbered, had struggled hand to hand in “a sweltering melee in one of the most notorious thieves' kitchens in Sydney”. The defence, on the other hand, described “a quiet party, a few drinks, some singing ... violently interrupted by a squad of hostile, brawling police” («Truth», 29 January 1928). The gallery was packed with friends of the accused, who loudly jeered the prosecution and police witnesses. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Mug shot of Frank McGowan, Robert McFarlane and John Dennis McFarlane, 23 May 1921, Central Police Station, Sydney. Robert McFarlane (the middle man in this trio) is mentioned in the Police Gazette, 7 September 1921 in connection with the theft of “three clocks, two sports coats and other articles” from the warehouse of Dobson Franks Ltd. He appears in the NSW Criminal Register (24 September 1930) as a “thief and petty larcenist”. His MO includes visiting foundries with a horse and cart and stealing ingots of iron copper and tin. He also “steals laundered articles from clothes lines”. He is described as being of “violent disposition”, “addicted to drink” and is said to associate with “the vagrant class”. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Mug shot of Gilbert Burleigh and Joseph Delaney, 27 August 1920, possibly Central Police Station, Sydney. Gilbert Burleigh on the left is identified as a “hotel barber”, and Delaney's picture is labelled “false pretences & conspiracy”. A companion photograph makes it clear that in fact Delaney was the hotel barber – meaning one who books into a hotel, boarding house or residential and robs (or “snips”) fellow patrons, usually in the dead of night. In this instance Delaney was charged with stealing a cigarette case, a hairbrush, a clock and a quantity of clothing from a dwelling-house. A month later he was further charged “being about to abscond from bail”. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Mug shot of Guiseppe Fiori, alias Permontto, 5 August 1924. Location unknown. No entry for Fiori/Permontto is found in the NSW Police Gazette for 1924, although this photo appears in a later photo supplement, in which Fiori is described as a safebreaker. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Mug shot of Jack Samuels (obscured), Howard Fletcher and Michael Patrick Ryan, 1 August 1930, Central Police Station, Sydney. Samuels, Harold Fletcher and M. P. (Mick) Ryan were three of twenty men and one woman arrested at an International Anti-Imperialism Day demonstration in Martin Place, Sydney, on 1 August, 1930. A report on the Martin Place demonstration in the Sun tells how police arrested the leaders before the demonstration truly got started (“REDS IN MARTIN PLACE / POLICE NIP DEMONSTRATION IN BUD”), claiming to have commital warrants against them. Only four of those arrested were subsequently charged however. (The warrants related to a squatting case in Clovelly, which was to be a forerunner to the more famous eviction battles in Newtown, Glebe and Bankstown) The Sun reports that as the police van drove away, “lusty strains of the Red Flag were heard from within”. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Mug shot of “Ah Num” and “Ah Tom”, ca 1930, Central Police Station, Sydney. Special Photograph no. D158/D159. The «D» prefix on the serial number indicates that the photograph was taken on behalf of the Drug Bureau, which in the late 1920s consisted of two men, Detectives Wickham and Thompson. “Ah Num” and “Ah Tom”, which may be approximate renderings of these men's names, do not turn up in the records of the time, and the expectation that they were to be released may account for their obviously elevated mood. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

Mug shot of Fay Watson, 24 March 1928, Central Police Station, Sydney. Special Photograph no. D6, (Drug Bureau Photograph). Although no record for Fay Watson is found in the NSW Police Gazette for 1928, the Sydney Morning Herald (26 March 1928, p. 12) reports her arrest in a house in Crown Street, Darlinghurst, and subsequent conviction for having cocaine in her possession, for which she was fined ten pounds. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

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